Stopping to smell the roses (and take the photo!)

Chantelle  had no idea what she was starting when she created her Photo a Day Challenge last year, but now she says it’s changed her life - and the commenters on her post today agree. 

Day 1 – Today (you saw this one on New Year’s Day)

Readers coming to grips with depression, the serious illness of a child, being run ragged by little ones, or just wanting to connect with fellow creative types, all attest to the encouragement and satisfaction they’ve found in the simple act of taking a photo a day to illustrate a prompt from the list Chantelle posts at the beginning of each month.

Day 2 – Something new

Shutterbugs have the choice of posting their daily photos on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, their blog, or all of the above!

Day 3 – Heart

I took up the challenge for a couple of months last year, but when some of my readers told me they missed my regular quilt-related posts I dropped out.

Day 4 – The view from here

But with the start of a new year I’m back joining in the fun and I’ve decided that instead of sharing my photos daily I’ll post a weekly digest here on my blog (with prompts).

Day 5 – Movement

If you can’t wait a whole week, and you’re on Instagram, you’ll find hundreds of challenge photos every day under the hashtag #fmsphotoaday, and mine in particular under my name @darlingdi.

Day 6 – Mine

There’s a Facebook page that’s worth joining too https://www.facebook.com/groups/FMSphotoaday/, if only to see those wonderful daily photos from every corner of the world!

Day 7 – Street

I find it great fun being on the lookout for that one special shot every day - as one reader put it, ‘noticing the artistry in the everyday things of life’- and I really hope you enjoy my first seven photos for 2013.

  Di

2013 ~ The Year of the Finished Project

If there’s a single theme running through my favourite bloggers’ posts this week it’s that of finishing up those UFOs. Everywhere I look we’re being challenged to let our UFOs (Unfinished Objects) and PhDs (Projects Half Finished) see the light, take a deep breath and just do it!

Lynne, here in Sydney, is one of these encouragers and you can read the details of her Linky party here.

Basically, on the first Thursday of the month she asks us to blog about an unfinished project we plan to work on that month and to link that blog post to hers, and to her Linky party, so all the others can pop by our blogs and see what we’re up to. Mighty neighbourly!

On the first Thursday of the following month you can either proudly proclaim your latest finish, show off your progress if it’s still a work-in-progress (WIP), or ‘fess up if you’ve fallen back off the wagon!

I’m starting with my Roebuck Quilt, which has been around for almost 5 years. I have several UFOs, if I’m honest, but this is the only one I feel excited enough to tackle right now.

It’s a reproduction of a quilt made by sisters Lizzie and Margaret Roebuck in 1861 on a ship sailing to Sydney from England, and I started it on Valentine’s Day 2007 at a class with Robyn Evans at Quiltsmith. There are hundreds of scraps in this quilt, mostly in Civil War and reproduction prints, and though I’ve moved on to using brighter, more modern fabrics in my quilts, I still love this one.

This was me working on the hand quilting in August 2010, before I was distracted by dazzlers like the Whirligig Quilt and Daisy a Day. Sometimes I can be so fickle.

Still, I’ve made progress recently. I’ve bound the Roebuck and I’m currently quilting that last border, so the end is nigh.

This is a quilt Boak loved, and he had been encouraging me to apply myself to finishing the quilting, so I have a little extra motivation going on here!

Please pop on over to Lynne’s blog, get her button and join in the fun.

  Di

The first day of the new year

This was where I spent it – beside the water, not in it – with good friends.

I love Sydney in January!

  Di

2012 Report Card on Di

Quilting

Three words describe Di’s quilt-making efforts this year: Can do better.

In the entire year she has finished just six quilts.

These were the Whirligig quilt, Daisy a Day, Ben and Sunny’s Wedding Quilt, two Blankets of Love for RPA Newborn Care and one child-sized quilt for the Marcia Burgess Kindy for autistic little ones. The seventh “quilt” here is really just a cushion top, her entry in the Dots on Dots blog hop in September, and as such doesn’t really count – it’s just there to complete the collage.

Perhaps if she were to spend less time reading blogs, pinning to Pinterest and playing Words with Friends she might be able to turn more of those quilts floating round in her imagination into reality. Somehow, though, I don’t think that’s going to happen since Di loves keeping in touch with her cyber-friends all over the world and gathering quilt-making inspiration from the blogs she follows.

She could also benefit from not setting such unrealistic goals for herself. Just a thought.

Smaller Items

Di has scored better in this area, with around 40 finishes.

The friends who helped Ben and Sunny’s wedding day in August go smoothly were very happy with their “thank you” gifts of cathedral windows pincushions.

In June Di’s efforts were boosted by an extremely productive collaboration with Di B. She made sock monkeys and owls, crocheted teddy bears, travel trays, luggage labels, applique baby singlets, tea towels, golfers’ hand towels, baby shoes and a growth chart. Together Team Di, along with others on the Rose Bay Committee, were able to raise $3,500 from craft table sales for St Luke’s Hospital.

In a strong finish to the year Team Di (and a friend) knitted seven fat googly-eyed sheep for their neighbouring church, St John’s Darlinghurst, to use in their Messy Christmas Nativity Trail.

The observation must be made that without Di B urging and encouraging her Di would not be nearly so generous and outward-focused and could easily spend far too much time navel-gazing.

Final Comments

The last four months have not been easy for Di J, and she has lost the plot somewhat, as far as her handwork is concerned.

However she has received so much love and support from her family, friends and fellow bloggers that we are hoping to see her finding renewed joy in her all her creative endeavours over the coming year.

**********************************************

May God bless you all in 2013!

Enough is enough!

They began arriving in my Inbox as a trickle, blog comments written by “Anonymous” pretending to commend me on my “remarkable” blog, agreeing with my “views expressed”, even asking me for advice on how to achieve such a superior blog.

But over the last week the volume of these irritating “Anonymous” emails has swelled to a torrent, in their pathetic broken English. I know they are not from genuine blog readers because they always end up by inviting me to click on a link and visit a website on erectile dysfunction, weight loss, share trading or such.

Enough is enough!

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I’m sure any fellow-bloggers are familiar with having to moderate this rubbish, especially those who have, like me, unticked “word verification”.

I’ve been a staunch advocate for getting rid of “word verification”, the bane of genuine blog commenters, with its almost indecipherable scrawl that we are expected to spend 10 minutes translating into letters and numbers before Blogger will kindly allow us to send our feedback.

Many is the blogger I’ve advised to turn off word verification and just moderate their readers’ comments.

Well folks, I’m eating my words now. I admit it - “word verification” is useful.

I’ve turned on “word verification” again for this blog. My sincere apologies if deciphering those silly jumbled letters defeats you when you want to leave me a comment, but there is another way - Just click on the words “email me” below my profile photo and you can send your comment directly to me.

I know I ought to take this small irritation in my stride, but right now my tolerance for such things is rather lower than it ought to be. Please forgive me. Life is too short even to sit here hitting that Delete button

  Di

Just added -

Apologies for my dummy-spit, dear readers. I’ve calmed down now (that rant did me a power of good ) and have taken Lynne’s excellent advice. I’ve simply excluded “Anonymous” comments and have turned word verification off again.

Ahhhhh, the coast is clear now, if you’d like to leave comments on any of my posts. Here’s to a less stressful New Year.

Love in action

The quilts were all hung from the columns with care,

T’was time for our beautiful handwork to share

It’s been three years since St Mark’s Quilters decked out the church for Christmas with our quilts, and Di B and I felt it was about time we held another airing of the quilts. Fortunately our Acting Rector agreed, so last Sunday many willing hands transformed the church in time for our service of Lessons and Carols that evening.

Perdita balanced on a pew to hook up some Blankets of Love.

Caroline helped us to choose effective combinations of colours and quilt designs to hang from each column.

Moo attached dozens of safety pins to the corners of our quilts so they could be hung from their points.

They did look wonderful against the sandstone columns, with the bright coronet of lights above them.

 

 

 

 

We even hung quilts from the baptismal font

…and from the pulpit.

In fact, we were quite inventive in searching out fixtures where our quilts could hang. Even though we didn’t have enough Marcia Burgess kindy quilts to fill the gallery at the rear of the church, Moo and Gail mixed these larger quilts with our tiny Blankets of Love.

This was the view from St Mark’s gallery once we’d finished – very pretty!

A panoramic view from the sanctuary end of the church looking back towards the gallery.

In the evening, though, it was even prettier, filled with worshippers standing beneath our quilts, singing Christmas carols.

Now that Christmas is over we’ve carefully packed our quilts away ready for delivery to RPA Newborn Care in the next few weeks, where the parents of very ill or deceased bubs will be given the opportunity to choose a baby quilt to keep.

Which one would you choose?

  Di

Access all areas

Our outdoor Carols in the Domain in Sydney is one of those annual traditions I hold dear, not least because it’s run by my friend Robyn Hobbs who has raised millions of dollars for the Salvation Army over the years.

Every year Robyn invites a small number of friends (including our little Princess and her parents) to enjoy the concert with the benefits of VIP reserved seating, and before-and after-show refreshments, usually on a balmy summer evening.

This year was just a little more special for me because it was the 30th Carols in the Domain and Robyn asked me to take photos of the evening with her new iPad so she would have her own personal souvenir slideshow of the night. Look at my title for the night!

 

Clothed in a very brief authority indeed – a serious photographer would have used a DSLR instead of an iPad - I was able to go backstage and take photos of performers like the Wiggles and Captain Feathersword with the Princess.

When Robyn took to the stage with her short message about the real meaning of Christmas, and dedicated this year’s show to her mother Betty and my husband Boak, both of whom passed away this year, I was behind her capturing part of the amazing 100,000 strong crowd.

 

 

I was able to take photos of the performers from right in front of the stage. That’s Robyn in blue, standing behind Georgie Parker, Jay Laga’aia and Santa Claus during the exciting finale.

And as always the fireworks were spectacular!

Well done, Robyn!

  Di